


The cat's out of the bag and really doesn't want to go back in

by aworldofmyimagination



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Relationships, Gen, Identity Reveal, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie), Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie) Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 07:57:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19719457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aworldofmyimagination/pseuds/aworldofmyimagination
Summary: Somehow, no one recognized Peter at the ancient ice cream parlor in Brooklyn that Steve had chosen. Steve’s idea of a disguise was an old Black Sabbath t-shirt that Morgan had dug up, an unbuttoned flannel shirt two sizes too big that sort of smelled like a thrift store but Steve swore he’d owned for thirty years, and an MIT baseball cap from the 80s that Morgan had had in her dress-up box.Happy was standing in front of his car outside the ice cream parlor when they left.“Happy?” Peter blinked at the man, who had his arms crossed. “Why are you here?”“Didn’t May tell you to stay out of trouble?”“No one recognized me!” Peter protested. “Steve and Morgan are great at disguises.”“Uh-huh. So that’s why there’s a video making the rounds on Twitter of someone in a flannel shirt and a baseball cap webbing two robbers to a wall outside a bodega and then high-fiving the police who showed up. It was such a good disguise, people are calling him Flannel Man, Brooklyn’s new hero.”“Really?”“No. Get in the car.”





	The cat's out of the bag and really doesn't want to go back in

“We have an update on the developing Spider-Man story,” the WHiH news anchor announced from the TV. “A Midtown High Academic Decathlon trip to D.C. coincided with the appearance of Spider-Man at the Washington Monument over five years ago and a science class trip to Europe took place at the same time Spider-Man was seen in London. Some are even theorizing that the new hero, Night Monkey, seen in Prague is really Spider-Man in disguise, as the Midtown class trip was there at the same time. We’ve spoken to several Midtown High students who know Peter Parker, the alleged man behind the mask, and they have lots to say on the subject.”

Ned showed up on the screen, fidgeting nervously. “Peter? Spider-Man? Heh. That’s not true. At all. And Night Monkey was a completely different hero. One’s a monkey, one’s a spider. It’s just a coincidence that Spider-Man was in London at the same time as us - he’s an Avenger or something now, so he probably just goes where the fights are. And he’s a good guy, obviously.”

The screen switched over to Brad. “I could see it,” he said. “I thought Parker was a male escort or something, but Spider-Man makes sense too. Escorts and superheroes are both pretty shady, in my book.”

Flash was next, gesturing wildly. “If Parker is Spider-Man, I’m gonna flip my sh-” The TV beeped. “He totally probably is, which is the wack thing here. I can’t believe I never noticed it. No way he’s evil, though. He convinced the school to use computer dissections instead of frog dissections in eighth grade. He cried and everything. He’s such a nerd.”

MJ stared at the camera for a moment before she spoke. “What is a true identity, really? Are any of us who we claim to be?”

The interviewer’s voice said, “Several of your classmates have confirmed that you are dating Peter Parker and you were seen with Spider-Man yesterday. So are you dating both a classmate and a supervillain, or are they one and the same?”

MJ didn’t crack. “Dating is a social construct and goodness is defined by the society in which we reside.”

The news anchor returned to the screen. “We’re conducting a poll about whether or not our audience thinks Spider-Man is a hero or a villain. Vote on WHiH’s Twitter now and tune in tonight at 10 pm to find out the results.”

-

“It could’ve been a lot worse,” Steve said, appearing from the kitchen. He handed out mugs full of lemonade to the haggard-looking group gathered in the living room of the cabin. Peter, May, Happy, Pepper, and Morgan took their mugs and Steve settled down on the recliner. Peter thought he heard a bone or two groan, but it also might have just been his imagination, because even super old, Steve was still super.

“Could it?” Peter asked. “Everyone knows who I am, so I’ll never be able to go back to school ever, and the whole world thinks I’m some evil mastermind who wants to enslave the world through military domination or something.”

“I don’t think you’re evil,” Morgan peeped up.

“And you’re going back to school,” May said. “I’m not raising a high school dropout. We have weeks to work this out before school starts again.”

“We already released the real video from one of the drones alongside a statement from Stark Industries about the situation,” Pepper said. “I’m not even sure how Fury got a hold of the glasses - Tony left EDITH for you to use if there was ever another Thanos-level threat. I’m going to do a press conference and get this all straightened out.”

“Thanks,” Peter said.

“And you’re coming with me,” Pepper continued.

“Wait, what? Press conference? Me? No, no, I’m terrible at speaking...things. May, tell her I’m terrible.”

“He is pretty stiff,” May agreed.

“And how is that going to help people think I’m not Spider-Man?”

“I’m pretty sure that cat’s out of the bag, kid,” Happy said, nodding towards the TV. “At this point, we’re doing damage control. The NYPD already released a statement in support of Spider-Man and Fury’s handling the politics of all this. We just need to focus on public perception.”

“I think I can convince people,” said Peter.

“Good luck,” Happy said. “I need to go make sure security is doing their job at the press conference setup. Be there at 6 sharp, because it’s airing on live TV.”

“Live?” Peter squeaked. “I can’t do that. Can’t they just get a soundbite or something?”

“Sorry, Peter,” Pepper said, standing to follow Happy out of the room. “That’s just the way these things go. It’ll all blow over in a week or two. Steve, can you watch the kids while May and I work on Peter’s statement?”

“Of course,” Steve said. “We can go get ice cream.”

“Or you could stay here, far away from trouble,” May suggested.

Steve waited until everyone had left the room to turn to Morgan and Peter with a grin. “I’m an expert at disguises.”

-

Somehow, no one recognized Peter at the ancient ice cream parlor in Brooklyn that Steve had chosen. Steve’s idea of a disguise was an old Black Sabbath t-shirt that Morgan had dug up, an unbuttoned flannel shirt two sizes too big that sort of smelled like a thrift store but Steve swore he’d owned for thirty years, and an MIT baseball cap from the 80s that Morgan had had in her dress-up box.

Happy was standing in front of his car outside the ice cream parlor when they left.

“Happy?” Peter blinked at the man, who had his arms crossed. “Why are you here?”

“Didn’t May tell you to stay out of trouble?”

“No one recognized me!” Peter protested. “Steve and Morgan are great at disguises.”

“Uh-huh. So that’s why there’s a video making the rounds on Twitter of someone in a flannel shirt and a baseball cap webbing two robbers to a wall outside a bodega and then high-fiving the police who showed up. It was such a good disguise, people are calling him Flannel Man, Brooklyn’s new hero.”

“Really?”

“No. Get in the car.”

-

“I’ll be really fast, Happy, I promise,” Peter said. “I just need my laptop and my AP Calc summer work.”

“Do you have any cheeseburgers at your apartment?” Morgan asked.

“Yeah,” Happy said before Peter could answer. Peter shot him a look, which Happy avoided by screeching to a stop in front of Peter’s apartment complex. “You three head on up, I’ll be there as soon as I find a parking spot. Come on, come on, everybody out.”

“So,” Steve said in the elevator. “Your aunt is dating your-”

“Let’s just not talk about it.”

When Steve, Morgan, and Peter reached the apartment, Flash was sitting against the wall across from the door. When he saw them coming, he hopped to his feet.

“Is it true?” Flash demanded.

“How do you know where I live?” Peter asked.

“Are you really Spider-Man?”

“No!” Peter squeaked. “I mean, no, of course not. I don’t know why Mysterio just made that up, or, or maybe I just have the same name as Spider-Man, who’s totally a different person, and they just got my picture mixed up. That’s definitely what happened. No superpowers here.”

Flash stared at Peter with narrowed eyes for a moment, then nodded. “No, you’re definitely Spider-Man. I guess I’ve misjudged you all these years. You’ve only been pretending to be a huge nerd to protect your secret identity.”

“No, that’s just the way he is,” Morgan said. “My daddy used to say he was the biggest nerd he ever met but also super cool.”

Flash turned to look at Steve and Morgan. “Who are these clowns, Parker?”

“Um,” Peter floundered. “My grandpa! This is my grandpa Steve and my, my cousin Morgan.”

“Yeah, okay,” Flash said, picking up his phone and turning on his livestream. “Hey, hey, Flash fans! I’m here right now with my boy Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man, and let me tell you, hearing that news was the shock of my life. Say hey, Parker.”

Peter awkwardly waved into the camera. “Hi! I’m not Spider-Man, by the way. Definitely not. Sorry to disappoint, but I’m just...me.” Peter winced, hoping that had sounded convincing enough, then turned to Flash. “Hey Flash, I gotta go, um, I’ll see you...sometime, I guess. Bye.”

Peter turned to slip into his apartment, but realized in a moment of panic that he didn’t have his keys.

“Hey, kid,” Happy called from down the hall. “What are you doing here?”

Flash turned his phone to Happy. “You work for Spider-Man!”

“No, he doesn’t,” Peter said quickly. “He’s just my, um, my aunt’s boyfriend. You must have him mixed up with someone else.”

“I don’t think so,” Flash said. “He told me he’s in love with Spider-Man’s aunt, so if he’s dating your aunt, that just proves you’re Spider-Man. Hear that, Flash fans? Hashtag confirmed, Parker is Spider-Man.”

“You’re in love with May?” Peter gaped at Happy.

“It was a heat of the moment confession, I thought we were all going to die,” Happy said, pulling keys out of his pocket. “Let’s just get inside.”

Happy unlocked the door and Peter, Morgan, and Steve slipped in behind him.

“He’s totally Spider-Man. He’s pretty awkward, not gonna lie,” Peter could hear Flash say to his phone through the door. “Trust me, though, everyone who’s all up in arms about Spider-Man being evil couldn’t be more wrong. Parker’s a nerd, but he’s super chill. If I had to rank everyone in my class from most to least likely to be a supervillain, he wouldn’t even place. Anyway, I’ll be doing an AMA in two hours, so get your questions ready, and-”

Flash’s voice faded out of earshot as he got on the elevator and Peter slumped against the door.

“That could’ve gone worse,” Steve said.

“No offense, Cap, but I think you have a pretty messed up idea of what a good situation is like.”

“I think it was super bad,” Morgan said. “Peter’s really bad at pretending not to be Spider-Man. No one’s going to believe him ever.”

“Thanks,” Peter said dryly.

“She’s right,” Steve agreed. “The press conference is in three hours. That’s not a lot of time to learn how to bamboozle the entire world.”

Peter stood from the door to stare at Steve. “Did you just say bamboozle?”

“Yep,” Steve grinned. “Did my use of bamboozle bamboozle you?”

Morgan giggled. “Mommy said bam-buz-bam...bambuzle a lot when everyone came over for Friday dinner while you were gone and now Steve says it too.”

“I think I’m an okay bamboozler,” Peter said. “I mean, it’s not great that everyone knows my name and my picture...and I guess the real footage that Pepper released showed me with my mask off...but I read somewhere that there are probably seven people who look just like me out in the world. So hypothetically, it could be someone else who looks just like me and is around the same age and is named Peter Parker...in theory.”

Morgan, Steve, and Happy all blinked at Peter.

Peter hesitated, then decided, “Maybe I do need to work on my bamboozling.”

-

Peter fidgeted with the sleeves of his costume. He could hear the real footage of him and Mysterio on the bridge playing from the speakers. Pepper had already given a statement, along with Happy and Rhodey, and Clint and Bruce had both sent in videoed statements supporting Spider-Man’s good guy status that had been played for the reporters before the footage began.

“Are you sure I have to go out there?” he asked May. “I’m so bad at this.”

“You’ll do fine,” May said. “There’s your cue - just say what we prepared and it’ll be over in a jiffy.”

Peter took a deep breath, put on his mask, and stepped through the curtain. Pepper moved aside so he could step up to the podium. Peter stared out at the huge crowd of reporters and cameras and did his best to ignore the queasy feeling in his stomach.

“Hi...everyone. I’m Spider-Man and I have a statement about what, uh, what happened in London. I’m just gonna read it, um-” Peter tried to take the folded piece of paper out of a pocket in his suit, but dropped it down into the pile of reporters. A reporter with a bright yellow blouse and a notepad passed it back up to him. “Thank you, that was really nice. I’m kind of nervous up here, it’s like a school speech, but way more important. Not that I remember what a school speech is, because I’m definitely not still in high school. Um…”

“The statement,” Pepper said under her breath. Something crashed down from behind the curtain and Pepper disappeared behind it, leaving Peter alone on stage.

“The statement. Okay. Hello, I’m Spider-Man. Last week I was in Europe on vacation, like adults do, you know? I was in Venice when this massive water monster thing attacked and I tried to help Mr. Beck - Mysterio - who was fighting it off. He got it destroyed, as far as I knew. And former SHIELD director Nick Fury contacted me about some scary fire monster a few days later so I ended up helping with that too. And I got these cool glasses that Mr. Stark left me with access to a defense system, but it was really scary so I gave the glasses to Mr. Beck since he’s an adult. Which...I am too, obviously, but-er-”

“Stick to the talking points,” May whispered from behind the curtain.

“Right. The paper. My friend figured out that Mr. Beck was using these holographic displays using drones and only pretending to fight them off, so I went to talk to Mr. Fury? Director Fury? remember to ask what the right title for Fury is-er, that was just a note. Ignore that. But then it turned out that Mr. Beck was tricking me and Fury wasn’t there and Mr. Beck figured out that my friends knew about the holographic trick too. Then I got hit by a train and I woke up in a jail in the Netherlands with these really nice guys who had come from a sports game and then my friend Happy, the Stark Industries head of security, picked me up and took me to London. I was able to disable enough of the drones to take down the illusion and I got the glasses back from Mr. Beck, but he tried to shoot me. I noticed in time to duck out of the way because I have a sort of sixth sense, but the bullet must have ricocheted and hit Mr. Beck and...then he died. Which I thought was maybe another illusion but it turned out that it was, um, real. So...yeah. The glasses are locked away for safekeeping now and they won’t be coming out unless something like Thanos shows up again. And also Mr. Beck was definitely wrong about my name being Peter Parker and just making up a name probably. My name is something other than Peter Parker but I guess I must just look a lot like someone named Peter Parker and they just got the picture mixed up.” Peter looked out at the crowd of reporters. “So...any questions?”

The questions spilled out of the reporters at a roaring pace.

“What do you have to say about the dozens of posts from Peter Parker’s classmates saying that they could totally see him being Spider-Man?”

“Is it difficult to balance homework and superhero duties?”

“Do your parents know you’re a superhero?”

“According to these records, the Academic Decathlon nationals, which Peter Parker attended, were held in D.C. at the same time Spider-Man was seen at the Washington Monument, and the Midtown High School Facebook page posted a picture of the students going on a class trip to Europe, and the picture included Peter Parker.”

“Do you really think anyone is going to buy the doppelganger story?”

Peter’s heart was pounding in his ears. He took a step back, then another, then darted through the curtain. May was waiting right there and caught Peter as he tripped over the curtain.

“Peter,” May said. “It’s going to be okay. Whatever you do is up to you. You can tell them the truth, you can tell them you want to keep your privacy, you can keep pushing the doppelganger story until enough people believe it or stop caring.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“This is about you, not me,” May said. “What does your Peter tingle tell you?”

Peter couldn’t help but laugh. “That really is the worst name for that. But...I guess Happy’s right. Wish me luck?”

May kissed Peter’s forehead. “Good luck, Peter. You’ve got this. Just be yourself!”

“That’s the plan,” Peter called over his shoulder, stepping back through the curtain. Questions started flying at him again and he tapped one of the many microphones a couple of times until the crowd quieted.

“Um, I know I said I’m definitely someone other than who you think I am, but that’s not really true. I really wanted to just be a normal teenager, but earlier today, Happy told me that the cat’s out of the bag and I love cats, but it’s really hard to put them back in a bag after they’ve escaped because cats don’t really like to be in bags. Or, they do, if it’s a paper bag, but they don’t like it when you try to put them in a bag because they want to do their own thing. I, um…”

Peter hesitated for a moment longer, then pulled off his mask.

“My name is Peter Parker and...I am Spider-Man.”


End file.
